Inside Google’s Autonomous Car It’s Like a Cozy Coupe for Grown-Ups

Bob Sorokanich

Jul 13, 2015

Google’s koala-esque self-driving car is definitely aiming for “cute” with its design. A bubbly little pod that looks like it should be emitting Jetsons noises as it trundles harmlessly through a picturesque Silicon Valley campus, it’s pretty obvious that the autonomous vehicle’s designers wanted it to come across as adorably inoffensive.

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And this past weekend, Google brought its latest prototypes to Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View, California, giving non-Google employees their first chance to peer through the windows and see what’s going on inside these cheeky overgrown golf carts.

Consensus here is that this looks like some kind of partnership between Nintendo GameCube and the Step2 toy company that never made it off the mid-1990s sketchboard. The turquoise-and-gray color scheme, rounded design language, and appearance of injection-molded hard plastic all convey a theme that makes us oddly reminiscent of birthday parties at Discovery Zone.

There’s a little bit of technical information to be gleaned from a glance at this photo: At the top of the snapshot, we see a video screen that McFarland says acts as a sideview-mirror display, and of course there’s the big red emergency-shutdown button. The center console seems to hold power-window buttons plus a few additional buttons whose functions are not immediately apparent, and check out all that legroom. This photo was apparently snapped after the removable steering wheel and pedals, required by law during public road testing, were taken out.